Not quite the bundle I was expecting, although I'm sure there's plenty of people who will enjoy it. The Humble Hot Date Bundle has arrived!

For starters, the most basic tier you can pay $1 for includes three Linux games:

Creature Romances: Kokonoe Kokoro (DRM Free + Steam key)

Highway Blossoms (DRM Free + Steam key)

Locked content Just Deserts (Steam key)

The middle tier available if you pay more than the current average has:

Ladykiller in a Bind (DRM Free + Steam key)

If you dig much deeper to find $10 you will also get:

Sunrider Collection (Steam key)

There's others available across different tiers that do not have Linux versions like CLANNAD, Genital Jousting, Purrfect Date - Visual Novel/Dating Simulator and G-senjou no Maou - The Devil on G-String Voiced Edition.

Jokes aside, might get $1 tier for Highway Blossoms, which looks like a sweet yuri VN, but honestly, I don't understand how this was put together - for example, why on top of all these (mostly) oddities is goddamn Clannad?

skyeI'm not terribly familiar with it but there is actually a broad strong history of making pervy games. This bundle is not interesting to me but hope you are all having fun whatever you are playing

Heck, people were making porn games back in the Atari days. It ain't a new thing.

JetriJokes aside, might get $1 tier for Highway Blossoms, which looks like a sweet yuri VN, but honestly, I don't understand how this was put together - for example, why on top of all these (mostly) oddities is goddamn Clannad?

I'm not a VN sort of person, but I've heard really good things about Highway Blossoms.

All that I'm writing here is more than common knowledge by now, so don't except anything that isn't well established everywhere else in this post, but I summarized some hard numbers into concise information about this bundle's worth:

G-senjou no Maou and Clannad both probably are in the Top 20 of every Visual Novel list. They have insane ratings of 8.46 and 8.66 on vndb.org and are well known in the community. The later assuredly has found even more success as a two-season anime. Unsurprisingly, you have to cash out for them buying the 3rd resp. 4th tier and both are Windows-only titles (But there is at least an open source engine for the Air ones. The Devil on G-String has one silver review on ProtonDB, 7 months ago.)

From the rest only Highway Blossoms seems to be noteworthy, rated at a 7.05 and just barely making it into the All Time Top #500. The rest gathers around the nondescript midfield of questionable quality, pulling ratings from the 6.-ish range and is probably only advisable for the hardened seeker of clichéd stereotypes and pitiful panty peeks. We are talking about Just Deserts (6.14), Ladykiller in a Bind (6.37), Sunrider Academy (6.35) and its sequel Sunrider: Liberation Day (6.76). Note that you can play Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius for free on GoG / Steam to see what the games are like (They have elements of turn-based strategy.)

Downwards the quality spiral there is Purrfect Date with a 5.44, and placed at the distant bottom we have the abysmal Kokonoe Kokoro (4.62). Atrocious writing is to be expected. Now there is still another game left that is actually not a visual novel and therefore doesn't belong in the bundle, I'm not gonna name it here to give this anymore attention than deserved. You can easily deduct what's missing from the Store's page listing.

All in all it very hard to wholeheartedly recommend any tier here because of the amount of trash that inevitable lands up in the shopping basket. But getting two of the most acclaimed offerings, that basically every beginner is advised to read everywhere where visual novels are discussed for just a bit over 13 €, it may be still your best bet.

Sunrider is an excellent game, it is kind of like the fire emblem series but better written and with more interesting battles. The first two episodes are free (and open source btw because the dev don't know how to hide the source, can't complain) on steam.

RuseFrom the rest only Highway Blossoms seems to be noteworthy, rated at a 7.05 and just barely making it into the All Time Top #500. The rest gathers around the nondescript midfield of questionable quality, pulling ratings from the 6.-ish range and is probably only advisable for the hardened seeker of clichéd stereotypes and pitiful panty peeks. We are talking about Just Deserts (6.14), Ladykiller in a Bind (6.37), Sunrider Academy (6.35) and its sequel Sunrider: Liberation Day (6.76). Note that you can play Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius for free on GoG / Steam to see what the games are like (They have elements of turn-based strategy.)

I think Ladykiller In a Bind's position in terms of ratings may be misleading, since for one it's a much different sort of game than its Japanese fellows, being created by a Canadian and focusing on a different sort of LGBT+ cast. More importantly, it initially contained a controversial (justifiably so) scene that turned a lot of people off. The scene in question has been reworked to fix the problems, but reviews never really recovered from that.

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